


The Gospel of the Inked [MS eps.]

by Sinking Beatrice (Beatrice_Sank)



Series: Last of the Inked [1]
Category: All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket, Original Work, Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Aristocracy, Conflicts of Interpretation, Gen, Hermeneutics, Inheritance, Inhumane Society, Last of the inked, Libraries, Mythology - Freeform, No one understood the Schism, Oh god, Origins, Politics, Post-Truth era or I don't know, Structuralism, What Have I Done, architecture, knowledge, schism, sociology - Freeform, vfd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 03:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9216479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Sank/pseuds/Sinking%20Beatrice
Summary: Every great slaughter needs a myth of origins.Of how VFD came into existence. And how M. and V. came to be the Last of the Inked.[Transcript of MS Epsilon as found in the ashes of the Winnipeg estate.]





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueFloyd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueFloyd/gifts).



> Surely, VFD must have its own mythology. Surely, it would account for the many sides of that constant war. Surely, the IS had something to say about it, even if they came in late.  
> Surely, when you think you can help people to improve, everything is bound to go awry.  
> This is the first fragment of my Last of the Inked series, featuring M. and V., the last two volunteers to be marked.

 

In the beginning, everyone was blank.

 

People would come and go, endorsing one role or another, one mask after another, without leaving any mark anywhere, and it seemed, for a time, that things were erasable.

In this chaos of unspecificity, there was no track to be followed, no discernible line of action, and so man was left to wander, going from one deed to the other without minding much which form would take the paragraph he was to leave to a confuse History, and the assassin fed the poor while the good husband slandered his good neighbor.

(In another version of this myth, in the absence of any path, it is said that people just stood and stared, and let things pass, unrecorded and unnoticed, as if waiting for some great catastrophe. Humanity was then the realm of contemplation. It is only after a long while that people started to gain focus.)

There were some, however, to whom a patter began to emerge. The Founders opened their eye on the world, and they saw it as it was, structures and habits, rhythm and repetition, and in the white mist that clouded their fellow humans, they perceived the lines, the arches and the windows. They had read many books, and sung many songs, recited many poems, and thus they knew the words, and they knew the syntax of everything human, the intelligent design and the absurd crossing-outs. And they saw that the world was wrong.

From the regularities they noticed, they established rules. They knew how many children were born each year, they knew where lightning would strike next, they knew how one would think depending on place and date of birth, family, income, profession and hobbies. And everything they found out, under every rock, behind every door, they wrote it down for their own children to learn. In a world that was a mere broth of confusion, they raised domes of knowledge, pillars of morals, porches of justice. They set the scale for every man's deeds. They were the Builders, they were the Architects, and they were creating a reality of admirable proportions.

 

On the day the first child came to the Founders, they were unprepared. They were at the beginning of the road, a road they were tracing themselves, with a compass they were inventing as they went along, in a forest of darkness, among clusters of indeterminacy. Their first child was born without a cry, and he opened his eye to a world of cold crowns, to a realm of silence on which the sun never set. As they revealed his name to him, they saw that their secrets would be shared with him, that he would learn their ways, and that men would know him as their first of blood, the soil of a kingdom of thoughts to come. Yet, though they spoke his name, they did not write him into existence.

On the day the second child came to the Founders, they were busy. They had built many libraries, opened many schools, settled many places where the constant buzzing of unordered things would be muffled by the chanting of a fountain or the smooth face of a lake. They were more that halfway through, and so much remained to be done that they barely noticed this child was to come. Their second child was born without a roof, and he opened his eyes to a world of maimed statues and broken symmetry, in the remains of an ancient realm of wisdom and beauty on which they would lean. As they revealed his name to him, they saw that their secrets would be extended with him, that he would learn their ways and create new ones, and that men would know him as their first of bone, the stake of a kingdom of thoughts to come. Yet, though they spoke his name, they did not write him into existence.

On the day the third child came to the Founders, they were tired. They had done so much, taught to so many, and the world was so full of their drawings and plans, so vertical that they thought they were at the end of the road. Their third child was born without an aim, and she opened her eyes to a realm of geometry and letters that was still and forever voiceless. As they revealed her name to her, they saw that their secrets would be useless to her, that she would teach their ways, and that men would know her as their first of flesh, the queen of a kingdom of thoughts to come. And, as they spoke her name, a design traced itself in their mind.

To lead the way was a heavy task, for men, most of them, were still as incoherent and irregular as before, though their actions still could be predicted. Humanity, as a whole, was still blind. People remained as slippery as the glaciers after the rain, and the masks stuck to them and blocked their eye. So in the mid of a summer night, the wise, the irretrievable voices whispered:

 

“Really, are you sure? I mean, do you even know how to do it?”

“Absolutely, I have read a book on the subject not ten years ago. It must be in section B67, if you don't believe me – I know those eyes. The whole process is very documented, don't worry dear.”

“But… That was not what troubled me the most, are you sure it won't hurt her? Or infect? I've read this could lead to severe allergies, and you know how puffy you get at the mere sight of peanuts, and it _can_ get ugly.”

“Look, there's no need to be unpleasant. She needs to remember. We will not always be here, and she cannot trust any one else. People need to know where they stand. They need a sign.”

“Yes, but this is only the signifier, you know that. The signified may tend to float with time and cultures.”

“We have to try! God, why is it always like this with you? It's as if you want us to fail.”

“A definite sign is quite hard to achieve, is all I'm saying.”

“She will know who she is. She will know the way.”

“...oh, alright, I guess you win. But get me that anesthetic lotion right now, or I swear I will have your scalp. You are insufferable. I'll make the sketches; we'd better make this discrete. And tasteful. Somehow, I don't entirely trust your judgment on that part.”

[Unidentified grumble]

 

And so it happened that the first volunteer was written into existence.

As the story writes itself, perhaps it should be reminded that she had not, in fact, volunteered into anything.

This is important.

 

On the day the kingdom of thoughts came, the first of blood provided it with a soil on which to grow, the first of bone with a stake on which to lean, and the first of flesh with a leader it could follow. She knew more of men that men knew of themselves, and she thought, and she created many ways, while nature around her gradually turned into landscape. Books were written and sentences engraved in stone and marble, on paper, on metal. Where men had cried and sang and tell each other lies upon lies, words that were forever unfixed and whose meaning could not be put a stop to, slippery and sly, there writing came to soothe and order chaos. Things were remembered now. Things were preserved. They could pass, the memories of yesterday, the previous year, ten years before that, decades, all that would have disappeared in flames and torment if not for the Founders and the Founders' children. For every deed a record was kept, a trace. And everyone to know where they stood. A scale of knowledge was established on the rungs of which men could now step up, having learned to remember, having learned to learn. Books, they believed, would change them. Books already had. Voices that had risen to slander and shout were scarce and mute now. As the thin braces of stone the queen had multiplied solidified under the sun, as the arachnidan towns spread their net across countries, silence receded, and quietness ensued. The world was quiet, now.

The world was quiet, for now.

But in her palace of the mind, the queen wasn't satisfied. Men knew, men had collected memories, they had written the long story, not together, but some of them had, those who owned the books, those who wrote. They possessed this mirror of themselves that ages and colors, and they had but to look at it to see everything unravel and read into their own eyes the course of humanity. And yet, they ignored it. They repeated the same mistakes of the past, they laughed in the face of hard facts, and most things, most violent deed, most horrifying delights, they did not perceive. She had given them all the tools and yet they refused to build, and yet they always found someone to destroy rather than to acknowledge that stones were heavy to carry and hard to carve. Their story was stuck in a loop, even if they seemed to be at peace, and some continued to suffer for the others, because suffering, as a great many things, was a gift made at birth.

So the child of flesh went to consult with the child of blood and the child of bone. It was revealed that they had all grown up in different environments, and the advice they gave was the true harvest of these various climates. The queen knew this, because she knew all the rules of human nature, and she knew how things grow.

The first child said they should give people what they really needed, instead of giving them so many books. There was a lot that lacked, and they should acknowledge that, not hope for the best while lecturing hungry people on the drawbacks of materialism.

The second child said they should lean on smaller a group of support, on people who had proven their interest in their cause, and that the spreading of their ways would be more efficient. They were all the more ready to help, the collectors of books. The librarians. They should learn the truth and pass it down to people who could see the errors of their ways. Coming from them, maybe it would be more easily accepted than from the Founders' children.

The queen was wise and she saw the grain of truth in both these stances. So she acted both ways. Goods were produced, offered, sold. Librarians were summoned to a big symposium, and for that occasion she built a grand Hotel. There she exposed her views, gave away rare volumes, drew plans for an infinite library, the biggest, most beautiful place ever designed. Her audience was in complete awe as she unrolled the scrolls of their dream.

While she was doing so, it so happened that one of them glided from the end of the marble table and, falling to her feet, push the veils of her skirt aside, revealing her ankles. All the librarians stopped and stared. She gave the slightest pause. Then she said that she would now register the volunteers.

The world shushed itself for a while. It waited.

Many volunteers were written into the world. But it wasn't the queen who decided to write them down. She never said a word about the birth mark the Founders had given her. No one knew what she thought. Through some progressive scheming of their own, admiring the style and the fine details, admiring her posture and poise, and reveling in the great sense of mystery that emanated from this meticulous articulation, they wrote themselves into something else.

They were volunteers in the full sense, the first ones. Then, it appeared to them that they were part of the same family, that their bond should show, and pride for owning and knowing about so many books manifested itself in the form of a single eye. That is what the Founders must have wished for, they said. The Founders paved the way, and if we submit at all to the queen, if we intend to maintain the kingdom of thoughts, we must do it as one, we must establish a tradition, we must found.

So, in an attempt to write down the future, every child of the librarians was marked into existence. And the Founders were long gone.

The mark was to exert an aura, to protect its bearer from evil doings and to act as a reminder of who they were and what they intended to achieve. To that purpose, they used permanent ink.

Years after years, more children came. It was thought that their number would remain forever growing, for they always came by three.

Meanwhile, the second course of action followed its own path, with things, objects made of solid matter and money of exchange made of symbolic value being passed from on man to the other. Even more than before, things circulated. Hunger and sickness diminished, and in her palace of the mind, it pleased the queen to observe as much.

And yet, underneath the surface, suffering remained as firmly rooted as it had been before, if a bit more refined.

At first, no one saw it for what it was. They knew the causes, they should have been able to control the consequences. It was the role of positive knowledge. After all, it had never been seriously written that humanity was doomed. On a general scale, it meant nothing at all.

And yet.

It so appeared that there was, in the world, people who liked material things too much, and people who liked books with too much pride.

And they wanted more.

Slowly, the carefully constructed universe the Founders and the Founders' children had assembled brick after brick, the curves and sharp angles, the beautiful nets and stony rhizomes began to turn into a pyramid, and all they had sought to eliminate glided along its walls. They had never intended society to become a place of high sacrifice to any sort of god, and the scandal would have stricken them, had they been but Gods themselves, and forever enduring. The time of the queen's reign had passed.

Others came, each of them richer in means, richer in knowledge. Some addressed the soil of the pyramid. Others did not. The libraries grew bigger and fewer, and more, invariably, infinitely more, beautiful.

 

Things of beauty are not for you to have, they say.

 

On the day the Schism came to the volunteers, they were hurting. One of them, the oldest, had just died, and for all their quarrels they were to bury him with dignity. Both sides, it appears, had that same intention.

The question that rose that day, billowing and curling in a sky of unforgivingness, was the capital question, asked many times in the years that would follow, of inheritance. Those who had, and those who had not, and they were, inevitably, the same.

 

Three is odd. Two is a war. They were born three and that marked them forever, although, to be at odds with each others, they tried to make themselves believe they were of two minds.

And thus, no one understood the Schism.

 

The Schism came on a day the world was under the sun, and the grass and mud, rocks ans thorns, wood and chalk, clay, sap, bark, roots, leaves, petals, gravel, every material on earth, concrete and compressed into pockets of matter, was set ablaze.

Fire plagued all the realms. Its waves crushed mankind, one after another, the tide that took, took, took, and split every atom to its core, dispersing the remains.

First it took the old one. Second it took the adults. Third it took the children. The creatures stopped living and began to run.

It took the castles and the houses, the towns and the gardens, the towers and the doors, the windows and the arches, the roofs and the cellars, the stairs and the attics, the tiles and the locks, the keys, it took the tables and the chairs, the sinks and the desks, the beds and the boards, the curtains and the corridors, the cases and the chests, the needles and the thimbles, the towels and the pots, the dolls and the marbles, the hammers and the screws, the ashes and the dust, the walls, the walls, the walls, it took the libraries, the bookshelves, the shelves, the books, it took the books, the pages, the paper, it took the ink, the chapters, the sentences. And then it took the words. The words caught fire and thinned.

And then there were none.

There was no kingdom of thoughts, because there was no kingdom, and there was no thought.

The birds descended from the sky, chanting in Greek.

The birds descended from the sky, chanting the last word.

And to those who remained, then came inheritance.

 

In the blast of the fire, the marks were put in the gasps the words had left. They signified. Again and again. For everyone wore them. And humanity continued to volunteer.

 

So, in the mid of a summer night, the tired, the irretrievable voices whispered:

“Look, I'm not sure about this.”

“What do you mean you're not sure? How am I supposed to feel? This is the one thing, the one steady thing...”

“Yes but it shouldn't be. How many times have you cursed your own? And I don't want to hurt them, look at how pink they are.”

“Quite tastelessly so.”

“Right, but you see, shapeless and purposeless. It would not add up. We should wait until they are grown up, at the very least. I've always thought it would make more sense, would be less… I don't know, does “authoritarian” sounds like a word to you? Anyway, _this_ is dangerous, _this_ is not a gift to make. This is not a way to welcome someone.”

“What are you saying exactly? That we should cease altogether to do it? This is tradition, this is the only solid practice that remains, otherwise we will forget, without a doubt.”

[Unidentifiable grumble]

“Calm yourself darling, calm yourself. You're shaking again. I don't know, look, I don't know! It's just...so smoky. What is the point of doing this anymore? Shouldn't we free them from this burden?”

“Are you suggesting that we cease fighting?”

“No, not at all, that's not...”

[hastened] “I didn't know this was a sad occasion.”

[hastened] “Who by fire?”

“Have you been good to your mother?”

“If there is nothing...”

“If one bell rings in the Tower of Bray, ding dong, your true love will stay!”

“I know there is doubt we can do this but”

“If there is nothing out there...”

“The world is quiet here.”

 

“… Forgive me. I… it's so hard to be sure.”

“I thought you of all people would at least trust me to have my own ideas.”

“I'm sorry. You know how this gets.”

“Precisely [sight]. Do we have to do this?”

“The ink is hot, and you know how expensive this is...”

“I tell you, they will hate us for it, one day they will.”

“That may be right, but it is the natural course of things.”

[A baby crying in the distance.]

“Is it really?”

[Silence.]

“I'm telling you, mark my words, for you, yes, but I swear, I swear this is the very last time.”

 

And it so happened that two more volunteers were written into the world. And they were the very last ones. The last of the inked.

 

 

_Notes on Manuscript Epsilon_

[ _First hand:_ _This is the most accurate version of the text known as the “Gospel of the Founders” (alternatively “Book of Fire”, or sometimes “Testament of the Queen”, although the last designation has undergone a lot of debates in the recent years) we have been able to retrieve so far. The manuscript's general aspect and scent indicate its great age; it may even be the first copy of the myth. Nevertheless, alterations are suspected, especially the well-known “_ _I_ _nterpolation of the_ _B_ _irds”, that remained to be attributed, and of course some of the parts related to the Schism (see natural vocabulary)._ ]

[ _Second hand: It seems pretty clear that_ _these version of the text has been censured, as suggested by obvious default in continuity, and variations in style. At least two hands can be identified, arguably more. The “first child” role in this manuscript is rather ambiguous, and it lacks some of the natural elements evoked in others versions._ ]

[ _Third hand:_ [left blank]]


End file.
